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After Palestinian Unity Deal, Did Israel Spark Violence to Prevent a New "Peace Offensive"?
It is widely thought that the flare-up in Israel and the Occupied Territories began with the kidnapping of three Israeli teens in the West Bank just more than a month ago. But our guests — author Norman Finkelstein and Palestinian political analyst Mouin Rabbani — argue that such a narrative ignores the broader context of decades of occupation and recent events highlighting the expansionist goals of the Israeli government in the Palestinian land under its control. "Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a settlement of the conflict — which the [Fatah-Hamas] unity government was — at that point Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction, in this case from Hamas, break up the unity government, and then Israel has its pretext," Finkelstein says. Rabbani and Finkelstein are co-authors of the forthcoming book, "How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Israeli musician and peace activist David Broza, ("What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding," recorded in an East Jerusalem recording studio with Israeli, Palestinian and American musicians. The Jerusalem Youth Choir, comprised of both Palestinian and Israeli members, lends their voice to the recording. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Aaron Maté.
AARON MATÉ: Well, with the potential for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, we turn now to the roots of the latest crisis and what can be done to avoid another in the future. It is widely thought the flare-up began with the kidnappings of three Israeli teens in the West Bank just over a month ago. Their dead bodies were found later on. But our next guests argue the narrative ignores the broader context of decades of occupation and recent events highlighting the expansionist goals of the Israeli government in the Palestinian land under its control.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. His most recent books are Old Wine, Broken Bottle: Ari Shavit’s Promised Land and Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End. And we’re joined by Mouin Rabbani, a Palestinian political analyst, formerly with the International Crisis Group. Today, both Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani have co-authored a forthcoming book, How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mouin Rabbani, we’re speaking to you over at The Hague. Can you respond to this latest news of the Egyptian ceasefire, Israel accepting and Hamas weighing this?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, I think Amira explained it quite well. So far as we can tell, Hamas has been neither directly nor indirectly consulted on a proposal that basically the Egyptians have concocted together with Tony Blair and the Israelis and some other parties, the purpose of which appears to be something that Hamas cannot accept and that can then be used to legitimize an intensification of the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
The problem for Hamas is twofold. On the one hand, as Amira explained, it basically restores an acceptable status quo, while, on the other hand, it has been endorsed by the Arab League, by the PA in Ramallah, by most of the Western powers and so on. So it will be difficult for them to either accept or reject it, so to speak, while at the same time I think the parties that are proposing this ceasefire are making it clear that they’re not really interested in any further negotiation of its terms.
AARON MATÉ: Norman Finkelstein, give us a sketch of the broader context for how this latest flare-up began.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, before I do, I’m going to just briefly comment on the ceasefire. The ceasefire, first of all, says nothing about the rampages by Israel against Hamas in the West Bank. And it was those rampages which caused the current conflict to escalate. It gives Israel a green light to continue arresting Hamas members, blowing up homes in the West Bank, ransacking homes and killing Palestinians, which was the prelude to the current fighting.
Secondly, if you look at the ceasefire, it’s exactly what was agreed on in June—excuse me, June 2008 and the same ceasefire that was agreed to in November 2012. Namely, in both cases, it was said that there would be a relaxing of the illegal blockade of Gaza. In both cases, after the ceasefire was signed, the blockade was maintained, and in fact the blockade was escalated. So now, in the current version of the ceasefire, it said the blockade will be lifted after there has been calm restored and the security situation has been established. But if Israel says Hamas is a terrorist organization, then the security situation can never be calm in the Gaza, and therefore there will be never a lifting of the blockade of Gaza. So we’re right back to where we were in June 2008, November 2012. Of course Hamas is going to reject that kind of agreement. It means it legalizes, it legitimizes the brutal, merciless, heartless, illegal blockade of Gaza.
As to how we got to where we are, the general context is perfectly obvious for anyone who wants to see it. A unity government was formed between the PA and Hamas. Netanyahu was enraged at this unity government. It called on the U.S., it called on the EU, to break relations with the Palestinian Authority. Surprisingly, the United States said, "No, we’re going to give this unity government time. We’ll see whether it works or not." Then the EU came in and said it will also give the unity government time. "Let’s see. Let’s see what happens."
At this point, Netanyahu virtually went berserk, and he was determined to break up the unity government. When there was the abduction of the three Israeli teenagers, he found his pretext. There isn’t a scratch of evidence, not a jot of evidence, that Hamas had anything to do with the kidnappings and the killings. Nobody even knows what the motive was, to this point. Even if you look at the July 3rd report of Human Rights Watch, they said nobody knows who was behind the abductions. Even the U.S. State Department, on July 7th, there was a news conference, and the U.S. State Department said, "We don’t have hard evidence about who was responsible." But that had nothing to do with it. It was just a pretext. The pretext was to go into the West Bank, attack Hamas, arrest 700 members of Hamas, blow up two homes, carry on these rampages, these ransackings, and to try to evoke a reaction from Hamas.
This is what Israel always does. Anybody who knows the history, it’s what the Israeli political scientist, the mainstream political scientist—name was Avner Yaniv—he said it’s these Palestinian "peace offensives." Whenever the Palestinians seem like they are trying to reach a settlement of the conflict, which the unity government was, at that point Israel does everything it can to provoke a violent reaction—in this case, from Hamas—break up the unity government, and Israel has its pretext. "We can’t negotiate with the Palestinian Authority because they only represent some of the Palestinian people; they don’t represent all of the Palestinian people." And so Netanyahu does what he always does—excuse me, what Israeli governments always do: You keep pounding the Palestinians, in this case pounding Hamas, pounding Hamas, trying to evoke a reaction, and when the reaction comes—well, when the reaction comes, he said, "We can’t deal with these people. They’re terrorists."
AMY GOODMAN: Mouin Rabbani, on this issue of the Israeli teens who were kidnapped and then killed, when did the Israeli government understand that they had been murdered, as they carried out the siege to try to find them?
MOUIN RABBANI: Well, what we know is that one of these youths called the police emergency line immediately after they were abducted and that gunshots can be clearly heard on the recording of that telephone conversation. On that basis, the Israeli security establishment concluded that the three youths had been killed almost as soon as they were abducted. And this information was, of course, known to the Israeli government. Nevertheless, Netanyahu deliberately suppressed this information, using the broad censorship powers that the Israeli government has, and during this period launched into this organized rampage—
AMY GOODMAN: Put a gag order on reporters from reporting this?
MOUIN RABBANI: Basically, yes, that, you know, this was treated as sensitive security information subject to military censorship. And there were only allusions to it, and only days after, by some Israeli journalists, and then only referring to some elliptical statements that were being made by Israeli military commanders suggesting that, you know, this is not a hostage rescue situation, as Netanyahu was presenting it, but is more likely to be a search for bodies, which is of course how it turned out. And the reason that Netanyahu suppressed this information is because it gave him the opportunity to launch this organized rampage throughout the West Bank, to start re-arresting prisoners who had been released in 2011 in the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, to intensify the bombing of the Gaza Strip, and generally to whip up mass hysteria within Israel, which of course resulted in the burning death of the 16-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem several days later.
AARON MATÉ: Mouin, you’ve interviewed Hamas leaders. The response from the Israeli government is always that Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction, so therefore how can we possibly negotiate with a unity government that includes them? What’s your sense of Hamas’s willingness over a long term to reach some sort of agreement or a long-term truce with Israel?
MOUIN RABBANI: I think Hamas, or at least the organization and not necessarily all of its members, but its key leaders, have long since reconciled themselves with a two-state settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think what’s been surprising in the past several months has been that the Hamas leadership has gone well beyond that, in the context of the reconciliation agreement signed on 23 April between Fatah and Hamas. In that agreement, they agreed to the formation of a new government, which neither Hamas nor Fatah would enter the Cabinet, but that the political program of that government would be the political program of the PA president—at the moment, Mahmoud Abbas. And what you basically had was Abbas stating publicly that he not only accepts the so-called Quartet conditions, but that in addition he would continue security coordination with Israel and, you know, was making these statements almost on a daily basis. And Hamas, more or less, looked the other way and didn’t withdraw from the government.
And this, I think, reflects, in some respects, the increasing difficulty Hamas was experiencing in governing the Gaza Strip and funding its government there, because of its—because of the increasing hostility or the exceptional [inaudible] the regime in Egypt, the deterioration in its relations with Iran, the inability to replace those with funding from Qatar or other sources. So you effectively had a government that was not only amenable to a two-state settlement with the support of Hamas, but it went significantly further and effectively accepted the Quartet conditions, which most [inaudible] view as illegitimate, and additionally was continuing security coordination with Israel that was largely directed at Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank. I think—you know, and this is—as Norman was explaining, this is a key reason why Netanyahu sought to undermine this agreement and the resulting government.
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, why do you think Israel has hesitated to launch the invasion? Their, you know, thousands of soldiers are lined up along the Gaza border.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, it’s interesting, because all the—there are a large number of theories that are being spun, in particular in the Israeli press. The answer, I think, to that question is pretty obvious. The Israeli domestic population won’t tolerate a large number of Israeli combatant casualties. That’s out. Israel likes to fight—not unlike President Obama, Israel likes to fight high-tech—likes to commit high-tech massacres, and it doesn’t want to fight a real war. And in 2008, Israel carried out, executed the big high-tech massacre in Gaza, killed about 1,400 Palestinians, up to 1,200 of whom were civilians, left behind 600,000 tons of rubble, dropped the white phosphorus and so forth. And for the first time, the international community reacted very harshly to it. The climax, of course, was the Goldstone Report.
And at that point, Israel was placed in a very difficult position, because on the one hand, it can’t stop the rocket attacks unless it conducts a ground invasion, which is exactly the situation it faced in Lebanon in 2006 also. The air force can’t knock out these rockets. They’re short-range rockets, mostly. They’re not even rockets, but we’ll call them that. The air force can’t knock them out. The only way to get rid of them—exactly as in Lebanon in 2006, the only way to get rid of them is by launching a ground invasion. However, the domestic population won’t accept a large number of casualties. And the only way you don’t have a large number of casualties is if you blast everything in sight within a mile’s radius, which is what Israel did in 2008, '09. There were only 10 Israeli military casualties; of those 10, half of them were friendly fire, Israelis accidentally killing Israelis. But after the Goldstone Report and after 2008, ’09, they can't do that again. They can’t carry out that kind of massive destruction, the 22 days of death and destruction, as Amnesty International called it. They can’t do that again. A new constraint has been placed on Israel’s political and military echelon.
So, that’s the dilemma for them. Domestically, they can’t tolerate large numbers of combatant casualties, but the only way to prevent that is blasting everything in sight. The international community says you can’t do that. You kill 150, even kill 200, Human Rights Watch said killing 200 Palestinians in Gaza, that’s not a war crime, they said. That’s just collective punishment. Only Hamas commits war crimes, because one woman apparently died of a heart attack while—Israeli woman apparently died of a heart attack while trying to enter a shelter, so that’s horrible, awful: That’s a war crime. But when you kill 200 Palestinians, 80 percent of whom are civilians, about 20 percent of whom are children, according to Human Rights Watch, that’s not a war crime. But the international community will accept that much, 200. But even Human Rights Watch won’t accept if you go in and you do 2008, '09, again. And so, the Israeli government is faced with a real dilemma. And that's the problem for Netanyahu. Domestically, he loses if there are large number of casualties, combatant casualties; internationally, he loses if he tries to do 2008, ’09, all over again.
AMY GOODMAN: Which resulted in how many deaths?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: 2008, '09, as I said, was about 1,400, of whom about up to 1,200 were civilians, I say 600,000 tons of rubble. They just left nothing there. And by the way, that was demanded by Tzipi Livni. On June 8th—excuse me, on January 18th, Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister then, the justice minister now, the person who's called a moderate by J Street, Tzipi Livni boasted—she went on TV and boasted, "We demanded hooliganism in Gaza. That’s what I demanded," she said, "and we got it." According to J Street, she’s the moderate.
AARON MATÉ: Norman, as we wrap, what needs to be done?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: What needs to be done is perfectly obvious. Amnesty International, which is a real human rights organization, unlike Human Rights Watch—Amnesty International issued a statement. It said, number one, there has to be a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and Palestine—perfectly reasonable because, under international law, it’s illegal to transfer weapons to countries which are major violators of human rights. So, comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and Palestine. Number two, international investigation of war crimes on both sides.
And I’m saying number three. Number three has to be—there has to be the imposition of sanctions on Israel, until and unless it negotiates an end to the occupation according to international law. Now, that’s not my suggestion. I’m basing it on the International Court of Justice. South Africa occupied Namibia. The International Court of Justice said in 1971, if South Africa does not engage in good-faith negotiations to end its occupation of Namibia, that occupation is illegal under international law. Israel has refused to engage in good-faith negotiations to end the occupation of Palestine, just like in the case of Namibia. It is now an illegal occupier of Palestine, and there should be a comprehensive sanctions imposed on Israel, until and unless it ends the occupation of Palestine under the terms of international law.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ll leave it there. Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar. Mouin Rabbani, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies. That does it for this discussion today. Of course we will continue the discussion of what’s happening in Gaza. This is Democracy Now! Back in a minute.
With 192 Dead in Gaza, Is Lasting Ceasefire Possible Under Israeli Occupation?
The next phase of the violence that has killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza is in flux after a ceasefire proposal from Egypt. The Egyptian government proposed a temporary halt to violence and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings, followed by talks in Cairo on a long-term truce. Israel’s Security Cabinet has endorsed the proposal, but Hamas has yet to officially respond. The Hamas military wing has rejected the pact as a "surrender," saying the ceasefire fails to meet any of its core demands. These include a lifting of the siege of Gaza, the release of prisoners recently detained in Israeli raids, an end to Israeli attacks on the Occupied Territories, and respect for the Palestinian unity government. But it is Hamas’ political wing that will have the final say. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to widen the attack on Gaza if Hamas rejects the ceasefire and if rocket fire continues. The potential for a ceasefire follows a week that saw Israel kill at least 192 Palestinians in a massive bombing campaign on one of the world’s most densely populated areas. The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza’s dead are civilians, including 36 children. More than 1,000 rockets from Gaza have hit Israel over the same period, with just a fraction landing in urban areas. Around a dozen Israelis have been wounded. No casualties have been reported. We are joined from Ramallah by Amira Hass, Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli journalist to have spent several years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: The next phase of the violence that’s killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza is in flux today with a ceasefire still on the table. On Tuesday, the Egyptian government proposed a temporary halt to violence and the reopening of Gaza’s border crossings, followed by talks in Cairo on a long-term truce. Israel’s Security Cabinet has endorsed the proposal, but Hamas has yet to officially respond. The Hamas military wing has rejected the pact as a, quote, "surrender," saying the ceasefire fails to meet any of its core demands. These include a lifting of the seige of Gaza, the release of prisoners recently detained in Israeli raids, an end to Israeli attacks on the Occupied Territories, and respect for the Palestinian unity government. But it’s Hamas’s political wing that will have the final say. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to widen the attack on Gaza if Hamas rejects the ceasefire and if rocket fire continues.
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] We agreed to the Egyptian proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels, through diplomatic means. But if Hamas does not accept the ceasefire proposal, as would now seem to be the case, Israel would have all international legitimacy to broaden the military operation to achieve the required quiet.
AMY GOODMAN: The threat of more violence follows a week that saw Israel kill at least 192 Palestinians in a massive bombing campaign on one of the world’s most densely populated areas. The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza’s dead are civilians, including 36 children. More than a thousand rockets from Gaza have hit Israel over the same period, with just a fraction landing in urban areas. Around a dozen Israelis have been wounded. There have been no Israelis reported killed.
For more, we’re joined by Amira Hass. She’s the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli journalist to have spent years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is joining us from Ramallah.
Amira Hass, can you talk about this latest development, the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, Israel accepting it, Hamas is weighing it?
AMIRA HASS: Yeah, it’s exactly because Hamas feels that this was a proposal boiled up with Israel without any consultation with Hamas. And this is something that’s forced on them and also reported through the media and not through negotiations or prior negotiations. Everybody knows that the leadership of Egypt right now is an enemy of Hamas, an enemy of the Muslim Brothers. And they feel humiliated, and they feel that it is not meant to bring progress and change for the Palestinians in Gaza, but to further marginalize them as a movement, as a political movement.
AARON MATÉ: Amira, you’ve spoken to members of Hamas. You’ve interview them for Ha’aretz. What demands do they have for a ceasefire that they would respect?
AMIRA HASS: Their demands are, of course, to return first to the 2012 agreement or understanding, that Israel should open the crossings at least for goods and raw material, and then allow people to leave through Rafah. They more or less neglected the idea, I mean, the hope that Israel would allow Palestinians leaving from Erez from the northern west—northern Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This is something they have neglected, but—or don’t have much hope about this. But at least for goods and raw materials and movement, people’s movement through Egypt. This is one.
Another thing that they say: "We see that Israel always does not abide by its commitments, and we need guarantees, international guarantees, that it does, for next ceasefire, because it’s time we find—have some understanding." Israel comes and has breaches—for example, the fishermen. It was agreed in 2012 the fishermen would be able to fish and not be shot at all, whenever they move—I don’t know—one kilometer away, one maritime mile from the shore, as Israel does shoot at them. Things like that, this is one.
Another one, of course, is the release of all the prisoners that had been released in the last two, three years within the Shalit exchange of prisoners, that Israel in the past two months arrested most of them, or many, the great majority of them who are associated with Hamas. And there is a demand to release them again. There is a demand to—yeah, these are the basic demands. There are other prisoners that Israel—Hamas prisoners, Hamas activists in the West Bank, political activists, who have been arrested, and they should also be released.
So these are very, very—as I was told by somebody who is a great Israel—an old opponent of Hamas, he said these demands are very, very reasonable and even minimal. We should even demand more. We should demand more that Israel does not fight, for example, the reconciliation government, that it allows it to function. We should demand that people move, leave the West Bank—leave Gaza Strip and be able to reconnect with the West Bank. So, the demands, the Hamas demands, are quite basic.
AMY GOODMAN: So far, Amira Hass, here in the United States, the coverage of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal is that here is a ceasefire that Israel says it will embrace, it will stop the attack, and Hamas is probably going to reject it. That is the story here in the United States that is being told.
AMIRA HASS: Yeah, unfortunately, just as the story has been told that Israel was attacked and the Palestinians are the aggressor. And, I mean, we know—I don’t remember which channel, but there was this absurd report showing destruction of a Palestinian home that was bombed by Israel, and it was said that this was an Israeli home, Israeli house.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Diane Sawyer’s report on ABC, showing a weeping Palestinian mother in front of her destroyed home—
AMIRA HASS: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —and it said Palestinians destroyed this Israeli home.
AMIRA HASS: [inaudible] But so far it seems that the international, or at least the Western, community is not appalled by Israel’s attack, onslaught. And as somebody told me, if this is OK according to international law, then there is something—something stinks with international law. A senior diplomat told me that, who does not succeed in convincing his government to have a clear stand against it.
Now, it’s true that according to international law, Palestinians also—the Palestinian rockets are against international law and also targeting civilians. And they succeeded. They have succeeded, Hamas, in inflicting fear among many, many Israelis, and also in somehow ridiculing the Israeli security establishment, who boasted in the first two days that Hamas has suffered a big blow, a great blow, which it hasn’t, I mean, militarily speaking.
The great gain of Hamas is that it has united—or Israel, actually, has united also the opponents of Hamas who are behind Hamas. The people see the ability of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to launch missiles at Israel, toward Israel, while they are being attacked, and so severely, by such a strong military power, it’s already an achievement. And somebody told me it’s not about killing, it’s about a message, a message that we are not going—that if you expect Palestinians to give up the struggle against the end of occupation, you are mistaken. This is how Palestinians understand the missiles, the launching of missiles. It’s true that there are—also the international media gives a lot of—and also, of course, the Israeli—gives a lot of prominence to demands of Palestinians for revenge. But this is not so much about the revenge as the feeling that one is standing up against Israel. And this is something that the Palestinian Authority has not done. Israel has been really humiliating the Palestinian Authority for so many years, even though the Palestinian Authority has given so many—has had so many concessions and agreed with so many demands of the Israeli government. So people are weighing this, one against the other. And they, even secular, who really detest Hamas’ ideology, feel that right now Hamas represented them in saying, "No, we are not going to give up the struggle against occupation."
AARON MATÉ: Amira, and can you give us a rundown of what you see as Israel’s goals here in this Gaza conflict?
AMIRA HASS: That’s even more difficult. Every fight, Israel did everything possible to foil the very, very weak reconciliation government, which is not a unity government, because Hamas has left it. So, it does over and over what people say mistake, but we think it’s not a mistake. But it has had a policy for the past 20 years to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank. It succeeded in it enormously, and especially when Hamas and Fatah had split and created the two governments of the two territories, Gaza and the West Bank. But now when Palestinians show signs that they understand that this is so much against their struggle, this split between Gaza and the West Bank, a split within the Palestinian movement, and they tried to change it, Israel comes and has to defend its main achievement of the past 20 years, which was this separation between Gaza and the West Bank, because the two-state solution is based on the, not only assumption, but on this principle that Gaza and the West Bank are the Palestinian state alongside Israel. And Israel has done everything possible to foil it, from ’93, ’94—actually, since ’91. So, in essence, this war, again, is in order to protect or to maintain this main achievement of Israeli policy of the past 20 years.
In the past five, six years, both Fatah and Hamas played into the hands of the Israel in that the Hamas government did not think really about reconnecting with the West Bank, and the PA in Ramallah really didn’t care about Gaza and made all kind of mistakes to let it go and create a vacuum there that Hamas, with full right, filled in, especially vacuum in the administration of Gaza. And now they tried to fix it. Because the results were public-demanded, popular demand, mostly in Gaza—I think in the West Bank people do not—it has always been so people in the West Bank feel very far away, detached from Gaza. And we see these days, during the attacks on Gaza, there isn’t mobilization in the West Bank to show the shock that people feel. I’m sure they are, but there isn’t much movement, except of some villages where villagers, young people, young men of also refugee camps, go and clash with the army as a symbol of protest.
But this is the main—this is the main goal. And, of course, the main goal is to maintain the occupation, I mean, to repress any opposition, any resistance. So, the means change. Sometimes it is a mass arrest in the West Bank and then a mass—I mean, intensive colonization of what is left in the West Bank or more construction. And sometimes it is a negotiation process that leads nowhere. And sometimes these are bloody attacks, as we are experiencing now.
AMY GOODMAN: Amira Hass, we want to thank you for being with us, Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories. She’s the only journalist to have spent—well, she lived for 20 years in Gaza and the West Bank, reporting from there. She was awarded the Courage in Journalism Award by the International Women’s Media Foundation. The award was presented by Christiane Amanpour. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we continue our coverage. Stay with us.
Green Scare: Animal Rights Activists Face Terrorism Charges for Freeing Minks from Fur Farm
The government has unveiled federal terrorism charges against two animal rights activists accused of helping to free minks and foxes from fur farms in rural Illinois. In newly unsealed indictments, the prosecutors accuse Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff of freeing about 2,000 mink from their cages on a fur farm and then removing parts of the fence surrounding the property so the mink could escape. The activists are also accused of spray-painting "Liberation is Love" on the farm’s walls. Lang and Olliff have been indicted under the controversial Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), with each count carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. We are joined by reporter Will Potter, who covers animal rights and environmental issues at GreenIstheNewRed.com. "It really doesn’t matter how you feel about animal rights groups or about these alleged crimes of stealing animals," Potter says of the AETA, which he argues is too broad while criminalizing protests and civil disobedience. "This is really about a corporate campaign to demonize their opposition and to use terrorism resources to shut down a movement." Potter also discusses his wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to purchase a drone for use in photographing abuses at factory farms.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: We turn now to look at new developments in what critics dub the "Green Scare." On Friday, the government unveiled federal terrorism charges against two animal rights activists accused of helping to free minks and foxes from fur farms in rural Illinois. In newly unsealed indictments, the government accuses Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff of freeing about 2,000 minks from their cages on a fur farm and then removing parts of the fence surrounding the property so the mink could escape. The activists are also accused of spray-painting "Liberation is Love" on the farm’s walls. Now a grand jury has indicted them under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Each count they face carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the activists is already in jail. Last year, Kevin Olliff, who also goes by Kevin Johnson, was sentenced to 30 months for possessing burglary tools, after police pulled over and searched the car he and Lang were driving and found bolt cutters and wire cutters. We asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office handling the case to join us; they declined, saying they don’t do interviews on pending cases once the charges have been announced.
For more, we’re joined from Washington, D.C., by reporter Will Potter, who has been following the case closely. He just got back from Los Angeles, where the charges were unsealed in court on Friday. He covers animal rights and environmental movements at GreenIsTheNewRed.com. His book is called Green is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege. He had also got a Kickstarter campaign underway right now to purchase a drone and use it to photograph abuses at factory farms.
Will Potter, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain what these two young men have been charged with.
WILL POTTER: Thanks, Amy. Kevin and Tyler have been charged with two counts each of violating a law called the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. And this was a law that was passed in 2006 and lobbied for heavily by people like the fur industry and also the meat and dairy industry and pharmaceutical and biotech companies. And what it does is it turns existing crimes like vandalism or theft of releasing animals, things like that, and elevates it into a terrorism offense. And because of that, they’re each facing up to 10 years in prison right now.
AARON MATÉ: And, Will Potter, the context here, in addition to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, there’s also this series of ag-gag laws passed statewide across the country.
WILL POTTER: So, the rhetoric from these industries and corporations for a long time now is that these new terrorism powers are needed for radical underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front—in other words, in theory, actions like the ones that are alleged in this case that were indicted just last week. But over the last few years what I’ve been documenting is this radical expansion of those terrorism powers to even things like photography and undercover video investigations. Right now these ag-gag bills are attempts to criminalize journalism and whistleblowers in multiple states and make it illegal to photograph animal abuse.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Potter, can you talk about the timing of the indictments?
WILL POTTER: The timing was not accidental, I don’t think. It happened—I just arrived in Los Angeles, along with hundreds of other people, for the National Animal Rights Conference. I was, ironically, heading there to speak about my work about government repression and corporate repression of political activism, and on the very same day, the FBI agents had announced this indictment of Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff for allegedly releasing mink from fur farms. And it was really telling that in the courtroom for—excuse me, for Tyler’s bail hearing, the government was making statements about how he was a risk because of his, quote, "extreme activism." And they said what he described as nonprofit work, the government called, quote, "violent civil disobedience." And I think this was really setting the tone in a lot of ways, not just for this particular legal battle that’s coming up, but also sending a very clear message to the hundreds of political activists that were gathered in Los Angeles, to instill fear and to elevate this terrorism rhetoric once again.
AARON MATÉ: Will, one of the industry reactions to your campaign to buy a drone to monitor factory farms came in a comment posted on Meatingplace.com. Emily Meredith of the Animal Agriculture Alliance wrote, quote, "Imagine you’re on your farm and you look up to find a small model-airplane/Star Wars Death Star-type object hovering over your property. This hypothetical could become reality if Will Potter gets his way." So, you’ve launched this campaign to purchase a drone.
WILL POTTER: I have. And I think it’s really telling to see the industry, the agriculture industry, compare cameras, in their view, to the Death Star from Star Wars, which had the power to destroy entire planets. And it makes you wonder, what is the threat of photography, and what are these industries trying to hide? In a lot of ways, I think that’s what’s really going on with this prosecution of Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff, as well. I mean, at worst, they destroyed, or allegedly destroyed, some property and broke some cages or released animals. But in doing so, they really shone a spotlight or put a spotlight on the animal abuse that’s taking place every day. And I think, across the board, that’s what these industries are terrified about. And that’s what has motivated me as a journalist to try to get around some of these new laws by purchasing a drone and shooting photographs from the air.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, this issue of terrorism, Will, if you can explain how these actions are being called terrorist?
WILL POTTER: So this campaign by corporations to label this type of activity and even nonviolent civil disobedience as terrorism has been going on for decades now. And in my book, I really chart this emergence of that eco-terror rhetoric. And it all changed after September 11th, and that’s really how we got to the point of this new law, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which is so broad that, according to its supporters, it not only includes things like stealing animals from fur farms and laboratories, but also civil disobedience and protest activity. And to me, this is this radical expansion of terrorism powers in the name of protecting corporate interests. So if there’s one message, I think, for me to convey right now with this court case, as I’m watching it unfold in Los Angeles, and these ag-gag laws, is that it really doesn’t matter how you feel about animal rights groups or about these alleged crimes stealing animals; this is really about a corporate campaign to demonize their opposition and to use terrorism resources to shut down a movement.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Will Potter, we want to thank you for being with us, author of Green is the New Red, also runs a website by the same title, as we move into our last segment.
The Prosecution Gap: Corporate Polluters Rarely Criminally Charged for Violating Environmental Law
A new investigation by The Crime Report published Monday documents how corporations almost never face criminal investigations for violating environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. A survey of environmental violations tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency shows just one-half of 1 percent of them trigger criminal prosecution. Joining us to describe his investigation, The Crime Report’s Graham Kates describes how one company, Alpha Natural Resources, faced only civil fines after it racked up more than 6,000 violations between 2007 and 2013. Kates says prosecutions are hampered by limited government resources in pursuing corporate polluters. The EPA has just 200 agents nationwide, and the Environmental Crime Section of the Department of Justice has just 38 prosecutors.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: We end today’s show with a look at an eight-month investigation by The Crime Report published Monday that documents how corporations almost never face criminal investigations for their environmental violations.
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, a survey of environmental violations tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency shows just one-half of 1 percent of environmental violations trigger criminal prosecution.
For more, we’re joined by Graham Kates, deputy managing editor of The Crime Report.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
GRAHAM KATES: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what you found. And what do you mean by criminal investigations? What needs to be investigated?
GRAHAM KATES: So, the EPA tracks violations across 800,000 facilities in the country, and 64,000 of them have in some way violated either the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act or other federal environmental laws. And they have a choice in how they handle those. They can sue them and handle it civilly or administratively, or they can pursue criminal action. And just 297 of the 64,000 that we found in the last year were investigated for crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: And what would criminal investigation mean?
GRAHAM KATES: Law enforcement, seeing how the law was violated. Was the company purposely negligent? Were they purposely violating laws? Or were they doing it excessively?
AMY GOODMAN: Give us examples.
GRAHAM KATES: So, one case that we looked at involved Alpha Natural Resources, which is one of the largest coal companies in the country. And from 2000 to—sorry, 2006, a former Massey Energy, which used to be the largest company in the country, had violated the laws four thousand—
AMY GOODMAN: Responsible for the deaths in West Virginia.
GRAHAM KATES: The same company that had the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in which 29 miners died, they violated the law 29—I’m sorry, 4,500 times in just six years. And they settled for $20 million. And then Alpha bought Massey and, the next six years after that, violated the law another 6,000 times. And they settled again for $27.5 million. And when I asked the EPA, "Do you think, given that history, is this a good way to handle this multitude of violations?" the EPA said, "Well, yeah, they promised, basically, they’ll stop doing it, and they paid us over $40 million."
AARON MATÉ: So, again, the figure is less than one-half of 1 percent of violations trigger criminal probes. What kind of resources are government officials working with here in terms of the agents they have assigned to these cases?
GRAHAM KATES: Very little. Across the country, there are just 200 investigators that focus specifically on environmental crime, and the Department of Justice has just 38 prosecutors.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we will link to your report. Graham Kates, deputy managing editor of The Crime Report. His investigation is called "Environmental Crime: The Prosecution Gap." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.
That does it for our show. I’ll be speaking at the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, Monday, July 21st, at 7:00 p.m. And on July 26th—that’s next Saturday night—at Martha’s Vineyard, 7:00 p.m., I’ll be speaking at the Katharine Cornell Auditorium on Spring Street in Vineyard Haven.
Headlines:
•Gaza Death Toll Rises to 192; Israel Accepts Ceasefire Proposal
Israel says it has accepted an Egyptian plan for an immediate ceasefire after its airstrikes onGaza have killed at least 192 Palestinians. Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev said the Israeli siege would continue if Hamas rejects the deal.
Mark Regev: "We said all along that our goal is to bring sustained peace and security to the citizens of Israel and to end the rocket fire on our cities. If the rocket fire nevertheless continues, if Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal, we of course are ready to continue our operation, to intensify our operation, as need be, to protect our citizens."
The United Nations estimates more than 80 percent of Gaza’s dead are civilians, including 36 children. More than 1,000 rockets from Gaza have hit Israel, but no Israeli deaths have been reported. We’ll have more on Gaza after headlines. [UPDATE: Shortly after our broadcast, Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza.]
•Afghanistan: 50 Killed in Market Bombing
In Afghanistan, at least 50 people have been killed in Paktika province after a car bomb exploded in a crowded market. All the dead are believed to be civilians. The blast came hours after a roadside bomb killed two employees of outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the capital Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
•Russia: Subway Derailment Kills 10, at Least 100 Injured
In Moscow, Russia, a subway train has derailed, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 100, about half of them critically. The derailment appears to have been caused by a power surge.
•U.N. Pulls Out of Libya; Shelling of Main Airport Destroys 90% of Planes
The United Nations is pulling its staff out of Libya amidst some of the worst violence since the U.S.-backed ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Heavy fighting involving rival militias has killed at least 15 people since Sunday, and shelling has destroyed 90 percent of planes at the main airport. The closures of the airport in Tripoli and another in Misrata have effectively cut Libya off from nearly all international flights.
•Kerry to Consult with Obama After Iran Nuclear Talks
Secretary of State John Kerry says he is returning to Washington, D.C., to consult with President Obama following talks with his Iranian counterpart over Iran’s nuclear program. Speaking today, Kerry cited "tangible progress" on key issues, but said "very real gaps" remain ahead of a Sunday deadline. In an interview with The New York Times, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Iran could agree to freeze its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief. But Kerry refused to say if the United States would accept that deal.
•U.N. Security Council Backs Aid to Syrians Without Gov’t Approval
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution to allow the cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid into rebel-held areas in Syria, without the Syrian government’s approval. The move could help millions of people in need of food and other basic resources after the Syrian government has been accused of blocking aid.
•U.S. Deports 38 Honduran Women, Children; Honduran President Says U.S. Drug Wars Fuel Migration
The Obama administration has deported 38 Honduran women and children, some of them as young as 18 months old, in what it said was "just the initial wave" of deportations, amidst a rise in children fleeing poverty and violence in Central America. The migrants were flown to San Pedro Sula, a Honduran city with the highest homicide rate in the world. In June, children were murdered at a rate of more than one per day in Honduras. One of those deported, Angelica Galvez, spoke after arriving in Honduras.
Angelica Galvez: "They didn’t give me any rights, nor a lawyer, nor an interview, nothing. They took us in the morning, and they didn’t tell us anything, if we were going to be deported, nothing.
Reporter: "Why did you leave the country?"
Angelica Galvez: "The economy."
In an interview with a Mexican newspaper published Monday, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández blamed the U.S.-backed drug wars in Mexico and Colombia for pushing drug traffickers into Honduras and fueling the violence that is helping to drive migration to the United States.
•U.S., Qatar Seal $11 Billion Arms Deal
The United States has agreed to sell $11 billion worth of arms, including Apache attack helicopters and Patriot and Javelin missiles, to Qatar, in what is reportedly the largest U.S. arms sale this year. Qatar is a close U.S. ally that hosts a key U.S military base, the Combined Air Operations Center.
•Citigroup to Pay $7 Billion for "Egregious" Sale of Toxic Mortgages
Citigroup has agreed to pay $7 billion to settle a federal probe over its sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities that helped sink the economy and displace millions of people. The deal includes $2.5 billion in relief for those who lost their homes. At a news conference Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder said Citigroup purposefully hid the risks it knew were associated with the loans.
Eric Holder: "The bank’s misconduct was egregious, and under the terms of the settlement, the bank has admitted to its misdeeds in great detail. The bank’s activities shattered lives and livelihoods throughout the country and also around the world."
Holder said the settlement includes a civil penalty of $4 billion, the largest penalty to date of its kind. But in a statement, the group Public Citizen called the deal "too lenient," noting no criminal charges have been announced.
•Ernst & Young to Pay $4 Million over Lobbying Charges
The accounting firm Ernst & Young has agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle claims one of its units lobbied on behalf of two companies it had been hired to audit. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ernst & Young of violating rules meant to preserve independence, but did not name the other two firms.
•Colombia Kills 13 FARC Rebels Ahead of Peace Talks
The Colombian military has carried out the deadliest attack against FARC rebels in more than a year, just before peace talks are set to resume. Colombian troops killed 13 rebels and captured one over the weekend in the country’s northwest. Peace talks aimed at ending the 50-year conflict are set to resume today. President Juan Manuel Santos won re-election last month after vowing to press ahead with the talks. But military operations against the FARC have continued.
•Snowden Docs Reveal British Spy Agency’s Internet Manipulation Tools
The latest round of documents from Edward Snowden reveal how the British spy agency GCHQhas developed a range of secret tools to manipulate the Internet by disseminating propaganda, rigging online polls, inflating page views, conducting mass delivery of emails, and monitoring Skype users in real time. The news website The Intercept published the document, which reads like a menu of covert tools with code names like "ANGRY PIRATE," "CONCRETE DONKEY," "STEALTH MOOSE" and "IMPERIAL BARGE," a term that refers to the ability to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call. The revelations come as the British Parliament is set to begin debate on a fast-tracked bill to expand government spying powers.
•Report: Beatings by Staff "Common" at Rikers Jail, Mentally Ill Targeted
A New York Times investigation has revealed that brutal attacks by corrections officers against prisoners are "common occurrences" at Rikers Island jail in New York City. A secret internal study conducted by the city’s health department and obtained by the Times found that over an 11-month period last year, 129 prisoners at Rikers suffered "serious injuries" at the hands of corrections staff. In 77 percent of cases, the prisoner had a mental illness. In one case, corrections officers intervened when a prisoner tried to hang himself, then forced the prisoner to lie face down on the floor and pummeled him so hard he suffered a perforated bowel and needed emergency surgery. Another prisoner, Andre Lane, told the Times he was beaten so badly he nearly died.
Andre Lane: "One officer took a knuckle brace and put it on his hand, and he just started hitting me — boom, boom. And that’s when I started getting dizzy and dizzy and dizzy."
None of the guards involved in any of the 129 cases documented has ever been prosecuted. Rikers now houses roughly the same number of mentally ill people as all 24 psychiatric hospitals in New York state combined. Watch our recent interview with Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan on conditions at Rikers during the two months she was jailed there.
•24 Arrested for Anti-Fracking Blockade to Protest Cove Point Terminal
In Washington, D.C., 24 people opposed to the gas-drilling technique known as fracking were arrested Monday after blockading the entrances to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They were protesting what they call the agency’s rubber stamping of the industry’s push to export natural gas. They focused on Cove Point, a liquified natural gas export terminal proposed by Dominion Resources in Maryland, which the agency is due to issue a final decision on next month. On Sunday, more than 1,000 people joined a "people’s march" against Cove Point and the boom in fracking in the United States, which they say imperils health, safety and the climate.
•Missouri Set to Execute Prisoner Despite Claims of Innocence
Missouri is set to execute a prisoner despite newly surfaced evidence that he may be innocent. John Middleton is scheduled to die by lethal injection just after midnight Wednesday for three murders, but his lawyers say new evidence may implicate two other men and prove that on the day of one killing, Middleton was actually 40 miles away in a jail in Iowa. His lawyers have petitioned a federal appeals court to halt the execution.
•South African Writer, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer Dies at 90
The South African writer Nadine Gordimer has died at the age of 90. She wrote more than two dozen works of fiction, three of which were banned under the apartheid regime. In 1991, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. In a statement, her family said her proudest moments included her testimony at a 1986 trial in defense of 22 members of the African National Congress who were accused of treason. The Nobel committee particularly highlighted her 1981 novel "July’s People," about a black servant who rescues his white employers from civil war. Gordimer spoke about that novel during a PEN World Voices event at Cooper Union in 2007.
Nadine Gordimer: "I was looking at what was very likely at the time, it seemed to me, to happen, that we were in that country, we were lemmings right at the edge of the cliff, ready to fall over into a civil war — this of course precipitated by the white regime there and naturally answered by black resistance. So ’July’s People’ was indeed my look into a possible horrendous future and what a blessing, all the gods that may be, that it didn’t happen. We avoided it."
Gordimer died in her sleep at her home in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sunday.
•Alice Coachman, 1st Black Woman to Win Olympic Gold, Dies at 90
Alice Coachman, the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, has died in Albany, Georgia, at the age of 90. Coachman won gold for the United States in the high jump competition at the 1948 London Games and was honored at the White House before returning to the segregated South.
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